Thomas and Company

Endurance that Defines Lasting Employer Services

Nate Kenney, CEO

What challenges do HR professionals face in unemployment cost management?

HR professionals looking for support with Unemployment Cost Management (UCM) face familiar pressures, including managing compliance risk, controlling costs, and gaining visibility in a highly regulated, constantly changing environment. For more than three decades, Thomas & Company has served as a trusted partner in the UCM space, helping employers reduce administrative burden while delivering measurable results through a powerful combination of human expertise and technology.

Rooted in a client-first mindset built on precision, trust, and long-term accountability, the company remains focused on enabling success for employers and stakeholders.

As the company expanded beyond UCM, it followed a clear principle: grow only when expansion strengthens client value. This approach shaped Thomas & Company’s evolution into a broader suite of employer services supporting an interconnected ecosystem of employers, employees, government agencies across all 53 jurisdictions, verifier communities, and internal client teams.

By staying close to client needs and building long-term partnerships, Thomas & Company expanded into additional services, including Employment and Wage Verifications (EWV), Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC), and Employer Tax Services (ETS). Together, these solutions help employers of all sizes reduce administrative burden, improve compliance, control costs, and generate ROI without sacrificing the high-touch service the company is known for.

“Our focus is building tangible and sustainable value for all stakeholders,” says Nate Kenney, CEO. “That discipline allows us to expand thoughtfully without losing sight of the people and processes at the center of employer services.”

A Long View Built on Trust

How has Thomas & Company sustained leadership amid consistent regulatory change?

Longevity in the UCM space is rarely accidental, given ongoing regulatory change, advancing technology, market consolidation, and rising employer expectations. Thomas & Company has remained a leader by growing through relationships and listening closely to clients.

Centered on a strong UCM foundation, Thomas & Company expanded into additional services, with a consistent focus on simplifying complex employment processes for HR, payroll, and tax leaders while protecting compliance and reducing cost exposure. The company blends deep subject-matter expertise with secure, intuitive systems that help employers operate with confidence.

This continuity preserves institutional knowledge developed through decades of real-world complexity, refinement, and long-term partnerships.

“When you stay close to your clients long enough, patterns emerge,” Kenney says. “Those patterns guide better decisions about technology, service models, and where to invest next.”

Value That Moves from the Inside Out

How does an inside-out value model strengthen employer services across interconnected stakeholder ecosystems?

Growth at Thomas & Company follows a disciplined principle: value is built from the inside out. Each decision begins with one question—how will this improve outcomes across the ecosystem?

Employees, verifier communities, and regulatory bodies all shape outcomes, and progress in one area affects the others. Recognizing this interdependence early, Thomas & Company shaped its model around helping, making the ecosystem itself the foundation for service design and delivery.

Technology, quality, and security support that foundation. Technology serves as an enabler—simplifying complexity while remaining grounded in human expertise and judgment. Quality is a daily operating discipline, driven by a service-first culture delivering high-touch support without friction.

Structured feedback programs, including advisory boards, stakeholder interviews, and CSAT measurement, keep innovation aligned with real client needs. This allows Thomas & Company to evolve without losing coherence, giving clients continuity across teams, systems, and strategic direction.

A Unified Employer Services Ecosystem

Thomas & Company has built a comprehensive employer services suite reflecting how organizations operate, not how services appear on paper.

UCM is positioned within a broader employer services network rather than as a standalone offering. Clients receive end-to-end claim management, proactive tax support, and reporting visibility that reduces administrative burden while strengthening outcomes across the employment lifecycle.

To support this approach, Thomas & Company continues investing in technology that simplifies communication and decision-making, including the SHIELD platform, an integrated business hub providing workflow visibility and cross-service communication.

“The UCM space has been underserved technologically for far too long,” Kenney explains. “Human Resource, Tax, and Payroll professionals are expected to modernize workflows and reduce superfluous costs. SHIELD is the answer to a decades-old problem.”

Our focus is building tangible and sustainable value for all stakeholders. That discipline allows us to expand thoughtfully without losing sight of the people and processes at the center of employer services.

The strength of the technology lies in its alignment with real-world workflows. Solutions mature through stakeholder feedback, with user experience shaped directly by how HR, tax, compliance, payroll, and legal teams operate daily. This creates clarity in complex regulatory environments, turning information into actionable insight rather than administrative noise.

Unlike vendors delivering tools or transactional services, Thomas & Company creates continuity across systems, teams, and stakeholders, ensuring a consistent client experience regardless of business conditions.

Reducing Administrative Burden through Partnership

How does partnership reduce administrative burden for employers across complex organizational structures?

Administrative burden rarely announces itself clearly. Thomas & Company begins engagements with structured working sessions across cross-functional client teams to surface priorities, challenges, and workflows.

Workflow analysis reveals how time is spent, where inefficiencies exist, and what they cost. Opportunity costs are quantified, ROI modeled, and clients gain a clear path to realigning internal bandwidth, supported by technology and expert service delivery that delivers measurable economic value.

Before engagement, administrative responsibility often sits across multiple internal teams, consuming time through manual oversight, compliance checks, and follow-ups. After implementation, workflows consolidate, routine tasks automate, and experts shift toward analysis, guidance, and risk management, creating real human capital reallocation, not theoretical efficiency.

“Trust builds when clients can see the numbers and understand the ‘why’ behind them,” Kenney explains. “That transparency is what allows change to happen without disruption.”

This process is continuous. Teams revisit workflows, assess metrics, and refine delivery over time. Education and training reinforce improvement through targeted learning, dashboards, and proactive thought leadership, helping clients address issues before they escalate.

Thomas & Company’s partnership model reflects how complex organizations truly function, cultivating relationships across HR operations, HRIS, payroll, tax, legal, compliance, risk, and IT security, ensuring every stakeholder has support and visibility to drive outcomes.

Technology That Supports Human Judgement

Tools alone cannot resolve intricate challenges. Thomas & Company’s tech-enabled approach strengthens service delivery while human expertise guides context, judgment, and decision-making. This balance produces tailored solutions and a client experience defined by clarity, consistency, and confidence.

Technology also reduces routine administrative effort, allowing leaders to focus on analysis, strategy, and decision support. Thoughtful automation gives experts more time to help clients navigate complexity and improve outcomes.

Continuous improvement is supported through performance metrics, quality assessments, and ongoing stakeholder feedback, ensuring innovation remains deliberate, measurable, and aligned with client needs.

“This mindset reflects a culture where accountability is expected, feedback is acted on, and every process is challenged to be better than it was yesterday,” adds Kenney.

Quality as a Way of Operating

At Thomas & Company, quality is not a checklist. It is ingrained in daily operations, performance evaluation, and response to feedback. Core values are not wall statements; they actively guide execution and strategy across every role.

Performance metrics receive constant attention, not as static measurements but as signals for action. Quantitative data is paired with stakeholder insight from client feedback loops, creating accountability that drives measurable improvement.

“As relationships deepen over time, clients view Thomas & Company not as a vendor, but as a true partner and extension of their internal teams,” says Kenney.

A Mission That Holds Everything Together

As markets evolve, regulations shift, and competition intensifies, Thomas & Company responds through strategic investment, deliberate modernization, and close attention to stakeholder sentiment. This consistency has earned recognition as Unemployment Cost Management Provider of the Year, reflecting long-term credibility and sustained execution.

The focus remains on strengthening technology, expanding functionality, and anticipating regulatory change without compromising service quality, judgment, or partnership. Thoughtful investment keeps systems scalable and modern while maintaining a consistent, human-driven client experience.

At Thomas & Company, purpose is reflected in execution, not messaging. It appears in daily operations, partnership-building, and sustained accountability, reinforcing that endurance is built through action, not circumstance.

“We’re here to deliver transformative, technology-enabled solutions with a relentless focus on service quality, innovation, and partnership,” adds Kenney.

A Disciplined Approach To Unemployment Cost Management

Unemployment cost management has moved from a back-office function to a board-level concern. For HR and finance executives, unemployment claims, tax rates and multi-state compliance requirements represent variable expenses that can escalate quickly if not governed with precision. Regulatory changes across fifty-three state agencies, fluctuating workforce patterns and heightened scrutiny from auditors have increased the complexity of managing claims and associated tax strategies. Internal teams often carry this burden alongside payroll, benefits, compliance and talent responsibilities, which can dilute focus and introduce avoidable risk. Effective oversight in this area requires more than transactional claim processing. Employers benefit when a provider understands the full ecosystem surrounding unemployment costs, including state agency protocols, verification communities and internal stakeholders across HR, payroll, tax, legal and risk functions. The ability to coordinate across these groups reduces miscommunication and shortens response times. Visibility into claim status, exposure trends and tax implications allows leadership to act early rather than react after assessments are finalized. Technology has reshaped expectations. Dashboards, automated workflows and centralized document management can streamline routine tasks and create transparency. Yet technology alone does not resolve interpretation disputes, audit questions or state-specific nuances. A sustainable approach blends informed judgment with configurable systems that adapt to an employer’s structure. Providers that invest in subject matter expertise while continually refining user interfaces and reporting capabilities tend to deliver more consistent outcomes. That balance helps organizations reallocate internal staff from repetitive tasks to higher-value analysis. Long-term stability also matters. Unemployment regulations evolve and agencies adjust processes without notice. Employers gain confidence when their partner demonstrates continuity, invests in product development and incorporates structured feedback from clients. A formal voice-of-the-customer discipline, combined with measurable service standards, signals that service quality is not episodic but embedded. Continuous training and education further strengthen internal HR teams, particularly in multi-state environments where rules differ and errors compound quickly. Cost reduction remains central, but the most credible savings stem from workflow analysis and process refinement rather than optimistic projections. When administrative effort is mapped, quantified and redesigned, employers can assess opportunity cost in tangible terms. Reduced claim volume through disciplined responses, improved documentation and coordinated offboarding practices translates into measurable tax impact over time. Integrated services such as employment and wage verifications, payroll tax consulting and related compliance support can enhance results when aligned carefully with unemployment cost strategies. Thomas and Company illustrates how this model can be applied. It has operated for more than three decades and positions unemployment cost management within a broader suite of employer services. Its approach centers on structured working sessions to analyze client workflows, identify inefficiencies and tailor both service delivery and technology accordingly. Platforms such as Shield and its multi-state compliance navigator were developed from stakeholder feedback and are intended to provide visibility, control and informed decision support. By combining subject matter expertise with configurable tools and coordinated support across HR, payroll and tax functions, it offers a disciplined framework for managing unemployment exposure. For executives evaluating providers in this field, that integrated, feedback-driven model represents a prudent standard. ...Read more

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